Detailed Description

A read-write lock is a synchronization tool for protecting resources that can be accessed for reading and writing. This type of lock is useful if you want to allow multiple threads to have simultaneous read-only access, but as soon as one thread wants to write to the resource, all other threads must be blocked until the writing is complete.

To ensure that writers aren't blocked forever by readers, readers attempting to obtain a lock will not succeed if there is a blocked writer waiting for access, even if the lock is currently only accessed by other readers. Also, if the lock is accessed by a writer and another writer comes in, that writer will have priority over any readers that might also be waiting.

void QReadWriteLock::lockForWrite()

Locks the lock for writing. This function will block the current thread if another thread (including the current) has locked for reading or writing (unless the lock has been created using the QReadWriteLock::Recursive mode).

It is not possible to lock for write if the thread already has locked for read.

bool QReadWriteLock::tryLockForRead(inttimeout)

This is an overloaded function.

Attempts to lock for reading. This function returns true if the lock was obtained; otherwise it returns false. If another thread has locked for writing, this function will wait for at most timeout milliseconds for the lock to become available.

Note: Passing a negative number as the timeout is equivalent to calling lockForRead(), i.e. this function will wait forever until lock can be locked for reading when timeout is negative.

If the lock was obtained, the lock must be unlocked with unlock() before another thread can successfully lock it for writing.

It is not possible to lock for read if the thread already has locked for write.

bool QReadWriteLock::tryLockForWrite(inttimeout)

This is an overloaded function.

Attempts to lock for writing. This function returns true if the lock was obtained; otherwise it returns false. If another thread has locked for reading or writing, this function will wait for at most timeout milliseconds for the lock to become available.

Note: Passing a negative number as the timeout is equivalent to calling lockForWrite(), i.e. this function will wait forever until lock can be locked for writing when timeout is negative.

If the lock was obtained, the lock must be unlocked with unlock() before another thread can successfully lock it.

It is not possible to lock for write if the thread already has locked for read.